Parents of pupils subject to child protection enquiries or plans will need permission from their local authority to home educate their child, under new plans due to be unveiled by the government this week. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has announced plans to legislate for a number of new powers and protections for children in the social care system, but there are some elements relevant to schools. For example, the government said it would legislate to create a “new duty on parents where if their child is subject to a child protection enquiry, or on a child protection plan, they will need local authority consent to home educate that child”. Every council will also be required to have “multi-agency child safeguarding teams”, involving children鈥檚 schools and teachers, aimed at “stopping children from falling through the cracks”. It is not clear whether this legislation will be separate to, or part of the upcoming children’s wellbeing bill, which is due to introduce sweeping reforms to the schools sector. Home education on the rise It comes as a growing number of parents are choosing to educate their children at home. Labour has already pledged to create a register of children not in school, and a single unique identifier so children can be tracked across different services. A Schools Week investigation found the rate at which children left the classroom for home education doubled last year, with big increases in some of the country鈥檚 most deprived areas. A Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel report in May warned that children in home education had died or were abused because 鈥渢he protective factor that school can offer was missing from their lives鈥�. It added that most children in home education were “safe, thrive and live happy lives”. which exists to conduct reviews of serious child safeguarding cases, published a report about 27 referrals received between August 2020 and October 2021 about 41 children who were not in school. Some harmed children known to social care The children at the focus of the reviews were 鈥渟ubjected to sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect鈥�. Six children died and 35 others were 鈥渟eriously harmed鈥�. The panel found that home educated children who were the focus of safeguarding reviews were 鈥渓ess visible to safeguarding agencies than those who attend school鈥�. Twenty-three children were previously known to children鈥檚 social care as children in need or were subject of a child protection plan. But half of the children 鈥渁ppear to have been kept out of sight of any agency鈥�. However, home-educating families have increasingly warned that they are being forced to take their children out of school because their needs are not being met. Child protection enquiries are made when councils have “reasonable cause to suspect that a child who lives, or is found, in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm”. A child protection plan sets out the action that needs to be taken to keep the child safe. Excess profit clampdown Phillipson has also announced a “crack down” on care providers making “excessive profits”. New rules will require key placements providers – those that provide homes for the most children – to share their finances with government, allowing “profiteering to be challenged”. There will also be a “backstop law” to put a “limit on the profit providers can make, that the government will introduce if providers do not voluntarily put an end to profiteering”. Several large companies providing social care also run independent special schools. Schools Week has asked DfE what it expects policy impact to be on the schooling side of the firms’ work. VSH expansion to kinship carers to go ahead Councils already have a duty to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children, children in need and those on protection plans. This role is carried out by virtual school heads. The last government committed to extending this duty to children in kinship care arrangements. The government has confirmed it will go ahead with that. It means councils will have a duty to appoint an officer responsible for promoting their educational achievement. The government said “in practice, we expect this role will be undertaken by the virtual school head”. “This legislative measure will bring consistency to the deployment of the role of virtual school heads nationally, and will mean that all these cohorts of children will receive consistent support no matter which local authority they live in.” Ministers have also said they will “consider whether the extensions to the role of the virtual school head should include a requirement to support all children leaving custody”. “This is a small group of children that faces significant barriers to education, including on their release from custody, but at present only those with care status benefit from the expert support and championing of the virtual school head.”